


I See You Staring (You Can Touch Me If You Like)

by Patchwork_Author



Category: Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020)
Genre: Art Class AU, Can you believe?, College AU, F/F, Fluff, Mild Smut, dinah is the model, helena is thirsty and a little clueless
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:40:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24039784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Patchwork_Author/pseuds/Patchwork_Author
Summary: Helena doesn’t know why she’s doing this to herself. Torture, maybe. Self-inflicted torture.Why the hell else would she sign up for a god damn art class?---Helena signs up for an art class and Dinah is going to help her. Pass the class. What else would she be helping her with?
Relationships: Helena Bertinelli/Dinah Lance
Comments: 34
Kudos: 261





	1. Baby Don't Be Gentle

**Author's Note:**

> I have like three other WIPs for these idiots that I should be working on but this couldn't leave my head. Hope y'all enjoy.

Helena doesn’t know why she’s doing this to herself.

Torture, maybe. Self-inflicted torture.

Why the hell else would she sign up for a god damn art class?

Helena is three-semesters away from graduating summa cum laude, she’s led the women’s lacrosse team to two different championships, would’ve led them to a third if she hadn’t quit to free up her schedule a little. Also, the girls on her team were nice but they were way too social for her tastes. She liked to keep more to herself. She’s done a good job rounding out her major with classes from other departments but she got too cocky, she thinks. That was the problem.

She took one fucking art history class last semester and registered for figure drawing 101 this semester and now she’s going to ruin her GPA.

Helena Bertinelli is a lot of things. She is _not_ an artist.

She liked art history. She recognized a lot of the Italian artwork from replications her father had in their mansion growing up. She did well in that class.

Making art is killing her.

The professor is patient with her, too patient, but she’s not doing well, and if she fails this course she’s going to…

Well, she doesn’t know what, really. But it’s not going to be good. She has to have a portfolio by the end of this semester and every drawing she’s shown her professor has earned her a too-polite smile that is just barely concealing the professor’s disappointed reactions. She has the mechanics but none of the vision, none of the _artistry_.

Helena is going to be destroyed by a fucking humanities class and it’s not fair.

The professor likes her, at least. She’s not sure if it’s because she’s clearly trying, or because of her family, or because she’s one of the few non-art students in the class who actually acts professional.

She treats her equipment reverentially, and she doesn’t snicker or blush or fluster when they have nude models in the studio. The models have all been men so far. They do nothing for her. There’s no reason to be anything other than professional.

She thinks someone in heaven, maybe her Great Uncle who always hated her, has it out for her. Because the second the model walks in today, Helena nearly chokes.

The woman doesn’t even have her clothes off and Helena is…

Shit.

She’s got these blond…locs, Helena thinks. She’s smiling as she chats with the professor, dimples appearing in her cheeks that make Helena’s stomach _do things_. Her skin is brown and glowing. Helena’s never seen anyone’s skin look so smooth. She’s shorter than Helena (not that it’s hard), and she’s wearing this crop-top that shows off muscle. She’s toned, but it’s not…

Helena knows muscle. Helena, herself, is all long, hard lines and angles.

The model is clearly fit, clearly strong, but there’s a softness too her, and Helena gets it. This woman deserves to be drawn. Painted. Sculpted. A whole wing at the Uffizi Gallery, the Lourve, the Met. Maybe a whole museum.

Helena is never going to be able to get even a tenth of this woman’s beauty on paper. She feels bad that she’s even going to be attempting it.

The model slips into the changing room, and Helena sets up her charcoal and easel, taking long even breaths.

She’s not going to die because of a pretty girl.

At least…she hopes she won’t.

The model comes out, drops her robe, and Helena’s hand shakes for the rest of the class.

:::

It, somehow, gets worse.

The model (Dinah, Helena knows now), notices her.

The professor has Helena move towards the front of the class next session, because “you can’t possibly see from all the way back here!” (factually incorrect – she can see too much, she feels like she’s on fire). Helena is usually…graceful isn’t the right word but she’s a very physical person. She’s somehow great at sports and yet once tripped up the stairs going to her dorm freshman year.

Now, she nearly trips over her easel as she drags it closer. Dinah laughs, and her eyes are on Helena and this is worse, this is so much fucking worse.

The professor announces what they’re going to be focusing on today (proportions or shading or something, Helena’s brain short-circuited the second she got within ten feet of Dinah), and Helena immediately fumbles with her charcoal, getting it on her shirt. When she lifts her gaze so she can at least try to get some fucking work on the page, Dinah is posing, yes, but she’s looking at Helena, one brow raised, and the barest hint of a smirk tugging at the corners of her lips.

Helena’s throat goes dry.

She gets something on the page, but from the look on the professor’s face, it’s not…well, Helena knew it wasn’t good. It was too clinical. Because if she has to look at Dinah enough for it to be art (which she can barely muster on a good day) she thinks she might implode.

She feels like a teenage boy. She feels stupid. She feels–

“Hey.”

Helena nearly drops her sketchpad when she hears Dinah’s voice.

She looks up. Dinah is wearing the robe again, and standing over Helena. Helena stands, slowly, trying not to knock anything else over.

“Hi?”

She didn’t mean for it to come out as a question.

“First live modeling course?” Dinah asks. It’s amused, the way she asks, but not unkind.

“I, uh,” Helena stammers for a second. “Yeah.”

“It can be a little intimidating the first–”

“I’m not intimidated,” Helena blurts. She wants to smack herself. “I just mean.” She pauses, slows down. “I’m in locker rooms all the time. Naked people aren’t intimidating.”

They’re really not. Helena’s been attracted to women before, yeah, but she’s also very good at separating that and approaching things clinically. With precision. Dinah somehow has bypassed every part of that training and rendered her a useless puddle.

“Dinah,” she says, and holds out her hand.

Oh. Helena somehow finds the wherewithal to actually place her hand in Dinah’s and shake it. “Helena.”

“I hope this is a little more pleasant than a locker room, y’know,” Dinah says as she grabs her clothes and walks towards the partition so she can get changed. Helena watches her go, swallowing thickly.

“It is,” Helena manages to get out.

“Though I’m sure my physique isn’t quite the same,” Dinah muses before she steps behind the partition so that Helena can’t see her.

“Your physique is fine,” Helena says, and she squeezes her eyes shut. “Incredible, actually. Way better than any I’ve seen.”

Oh god, that’s worse. That’s way too much.

There’s a laugh from behind the screen, and she throws the robe over the top and Helena can’t see anything (just _saw_ her naked a minute ago, anyway) but there’s something about knowing Dinah is naked, that they’re alone, that makes her hands go sweaty.

“So what’s the problem then?” Dinah asks.

“What do you mean?”

“Your block. Why can’t you draw me?”

Oh. That. “I can’t draw anyone, actually,” Helena says. She looks down at her shoes. “I’m an engineering major. Took this for fun, which was stupid. It’s killing my GPA.”

Dinah steps out again, and she’s dressed. “I’ve seen some of your sketches. Your technique isn’t bad.”

Helena scoffs. “I don’t have the vision,” she says, quoting what her professor has been telling her for weeks now.

“Professor Whitman tell you that?” Dinah asks. Helena nods, and there’s something about the way Dinah rolls her eyes that feels reassuring. “The woman is sweet, but she’s kind of a crap teacher. Anyone can teach mechanics. This is intro. If you’re missing the ‘vision’ or whatever the fuck she wants to call it, it’s because she’s not teaching it to you.”

It’s sweet, that Dinah would defend her like that, but Helena doesn’t have the heart to tell her that maybe, just maybe, Helena isn’t an artist. She’s an athlete, first and foremost. This just isn’t for her.

“Look, you’re not failing this course,” Dinah says, and Helena just looks at her because, _yeah,_ she’s pretty sure she is. “I mean, I’ll help you not fail this class.”

Oh. Oh. “You’d do that?” Helena asks.

Dinah shrugs one shoulder. “Seems like a waste to ruin your GPA over this,” she says. Then she smirks. “Besides, I don’t mind getting a little more time with you.”

Helena tries not to flush at that. It doesn’t mean what it sounds like, she’s sure. Dinah holds out he her hand expectedly and Helena just stares at it.

“Your phone,” Dinah prompts and Helena snaps into motion, scrambling to drop her phone into Dinah’s awaiting hand. She types something in quick before handing it back to Helena. “There. Now you have my number. Text me and we can work out a time to find your vision, yeah?”

Helena nods, and she just kind of watches Dinah leave the studio, dumbfounded.

:::

She does not text Dinah.

She knows she could, technically. Because Dinah gave it to her. But it just…

Dinah’s busy. Dinah’s definitely busy and while she was being nice, she definitely has better things to do than make sure Helena doesn’t fail an intro art course.

So Helena focuses on her workouts and her homework and whatever else until the next studio class. She’s still setting up her easel when Dinah comes in. Helena dutifully tries not to stare, focusing on lining up her paper.

Today, though, instead of going right to the partition, Dinah walks right over to Helena’s easel.

“You didn’t text me.”

Helena drops her charcoal. “Yeah,” she says, scrambling to pick it up. “I…was busy?”

That doesn’t even sound convincing to her. Christ.

Dinah quirks an eyebrow and holds her hand out again. Like a scolded child, Helena ducks her head and finds her phone. Again, Dinah types quickly before handing it back. When Helena looks at the screen, she sees that Dinah sent someone a text.

“There,” Dinah says smugly. “Now _I_ have _your_ number and I’ll text you.”

“I just didn’t want to bother–”

“I offered, remember? Not getting rid of me that easy, H.”

And then she’s gone, walking behind the partition to get changed. Helena can feel her classmates staring at her and her neck heats up but she tries, really tries, to focus.

She has to admit there’s a part of her that’s actually kind of touched at Dinah’s insistence. Helena knows she’s a little…solitary and awkward prickly. Most people balk pretty quickly at it. It’s nice that Dinah doesn’t seem to mind.

Even if it also makes Helena feel like she’s going to break out in hives.

:::

She can’t avoid Dinah the second time. Dinah’s texted her, told her where to show up and when and while Helena could just bail, she has her late-mother’s voice still in her head pre-emptively scolding her for being rude.

So she grabs a bottle of expensive wine (another of her mother’s lessons in manners), hopes on her motorbike and heads over to Dinah’s place.

She hits the buzzer with her knuckle and waits for it to crackle to life. “Come on up, killer.”

The lock clicks open and Helena steps inside, walking up the stairs until she gets to Dinah’s floor. She could take the elevator but honestly, she’s trying to buy herself time to calm down. This is just friendly. It’s basically tutoring, but for art. That’s all.

That’s all.

The door to Dinah’s place swings open and Helena feels drunk before the wine is even open. Dinah is smiling up at her, dimples flashing and she’s wearing tight pants and a fucking crop top and –

This is going to be harder than you thought.

“Wine? For me?” Dinah asks, pulling her inside. “Who knew you were such a gentlewoman?”

Helena blushes. “My parents raised me well,” she says. Well. Until they didn’t, and she was raised by a bunch of Sicilian brothers and their father instead, but Sal and the others were just as firm on manners as her own mother and father had been. “I, um, like your place.”

She does. It’s small, but it’s Dinah. It’s warm, and the furniture looks comfortable and there are thriving plants (Helena only has succulents and cacti because everything else she’s tried, she’s killed), and there’s a stack of old vinyl next to a record player.

“Thanks,” Dinah says absently as she flips through the menu from a Chinese takeout place.

Helena feels a little stupid, standing there with her sketchbook and her case of supplies, while Dinah looks completely at ease.

“What are we…” Helena trails off, tries again. “What’s the plan?”

Dinah casts her an amused look. “No plan,” she says. Helena must not have a good enough poker face, because Dinah snickers and caves. “Okay, here’s the plan. Gonna order dinner. Put you through some exercises. Sound good?”

“Okay,” Helena says. She can do that. “You’re not too busy?”

Dinah’s smirk remains firmly fixed in place. “To model for you? Never.”

It makes Helena's temperature spike. She isn't sure she's going to make it trough the night.

:::

They sit on Dinah’s couch and eat Chinese food and just…talk. Helena doesn’t usually like talking to people, but it’s nice, talking to Dinah. It’s easy. They talk for longer than expected, and it’s definitely wasting some of the time that Helena should be using but she likes this.

She likes hearing about Dinah’s life and the professor she hates and the class she’s TA-ing and her crazy freshman-year roommate Harley and all of it. She loves all of it.

“Do you…do this often?” Helena asks.

“What, strip for strangers?” Dinah asks with a grin and Helena feels her ears get warm. Stupid. “Nah, I’ve done the live modelling one or two times before, but I was in the class myself. I’m a music-art double major.”

“Oh,” Helena says.

“You’re engineering?” Dinah asks. Helena nods, poking at her general tso’s chicken. She’s surprised Dinah remembered. “Good with your hands, then?”

Helena nearly chokes.

When Helena’s plate is empty, Dinah takes it from her, and hands her the sketchpad instead. Dinah is sitting on one end of the couch, and Helena is at the other. Helena waits, and when nothing happens, she clears her throat.

“Are you going to…?”

Dinah swirls her wine in her glass. “Take off my clothes?” she asks with a sly grin. “Sorry, honey, let’s start with the basics first. We’ll see where the night takes us.”

Helena wants to die.

“Right,” she says. “Of course, I don’t know. I. Um. Sure.”

She flips her sketchpad open and takes a deep breath. It’s still intimidating to think about drawing Dinah. She’s just so perfect. Catching her on paper seems overwhelming.

Dinah’s head is tilted every so slightly and this is just sketching, right? She doesn’t need to get the detail work down, just the basics.

So she does.

She works on the cut of Dinah’s jaw, the fullness of her lips, the nearly divine proportions of her features. She gets so lost in it – in the work, in Dinah’s face – that for the first time since she’s taken this class, she feels the nerves fall away. More than that, she actually cares about the subject she’s presented with.

She doesn’t even realize how late it is until Dinah starts to look sleepy.

“Fuck,” Helena says. “I should go.”

“Let me see, first,” Dinah says. Helena hesitates for the first time that night. It’s…she doesn’t know what Dinah will think of her work. But she’s helping her out when she doesn’t have to, so Helena figures it’s only right. She hands over the sketchpad, biting down on her lip as Dinah flips through it.

“Okay?” she asks softly.

Dinah looks up and her gaze isn’t teasing or harsh. It’s warm. “She’s wrong, you know,” Dinah says. “You do have vision.”

Helena doesn’t feel like she’s on fire anymore. She feels like she’s melting and it’s somehow so much better and so much worse.

“Thank you.”

:::

The next studio session, Helena still can’t really focus, but she at least gets something down on paper, and she thinks that’s progress. She’s packing up when Dinah walks by her, dressed again, and says, “Swing by tomorrow night?”

“Okay,” Helena says.

Dinah grins, heads towards the exit. “Lucky me, I get have your eyes on me again.”

Helena drops her pencil case, sending pencils flying across the floor.

:::

“How do you want me?”

Fuck. Helena tries to slow down her breathing. They’re on Dinah’s couch again. She knows what Dinah means. She knows she’s talking about poses. Not that knowing that is at all making the heat between Helena’s legs subside.

“Just. Um,” Helena reaches a hand out but draws back before she even touches Dinah.

“You can move me,” Dinah breathes out, her gaze heavy on Helena.

Helena swallows and nods. She slides a hand under Dinah’s chin, tilting her head just so. She likes the way Dinah’s lashes sweep her cheeks from this angle. She likes Dinah’s face in general.

She’s so fucking screwed.

She gets work on the page, still. Her hand doesn’t even tremble. Not when she draws the line of Dinah’s cheekbone, the hollow of her neck. She imagines tracing Dinah’s jawline with her tongue, but she gets it on the fucking page.

“You’re doing great,” Dinah breathes, even though Helena feels like she should be the one saying that to _her_. “Come here."

Helena freezes, and Dinah lets out the softest of laughs before scooting forward, brushing a finger across Helena's cheek. "You have charcoal on your face."

"Thank you," Helena says, because what the fuck else is she supposed to say when Dinah is close enough that they're breathing the same air, when Dinah is touching her?

Dinah just smiles at her, almost fondly. "Come on. Next exercise.”

Helena nods. Yeah. Okay. Good. More for her to do. More for her to concentrate on. She flips through her sketchpad to a blank page and when she looks up–

Fuck.

God. Just. Fuck.

Dinah is out of most of her clothes, still in her bra and underwear. She unclasps the bra and it falls to the floor.

This is not the first time Helena has seen Dinah naked. But this? Alone, in Dinah’s apartment, this close? It’s…too much. It’s too much and she snaps her pencil in half.

“Shit,” she says, rummaging for a new one.

This is professional. This is…this is Dinah helping her pass a course. Or trying to kill her. Both, maybe.

“You good?”

“Yes,” Helena says, way too fast.

Dinah laughs.

“Ready to work?”

Helena can’t even respond. She just nods. Dinah gets into position – arches her back just a little and…

“Fuck,” Helena breathes out.

“You okay, honey?” Dinah asks, and it’s just as breathy.

Helena looks up from her blank page, at Dinah. Dinah, who’s nearly naked. Dinah, who’s close enough that Helena can feel the heat rolling off of her.

“It’s nothing,” Helena says. “It’s unprofessional.”

“Yeah?” Dinah asks. Her voice is a little pitchy. “Me too.”

Helena is about to ask her what she’s talking about when Dinah spreads her legs and Helena can see. There, in the middle of Dinah’s underwear.

She’s. She’s wet.

_Oh._

Helena’s gaze snaps up to Dinah’s, hungry and heated, she knows. They’re on the same page, here. Helena tosses her sketchpad just in time for Dinah to sink onto her lap instead, and kisses her.

It’s needy, the way Dinah sighs against Helena, the way she licks into Helena’s mouth, slides their bodies together. Helena can’t seem to get her hands everywhere fast enough. She needs to touch, so badly.

She traces the line of Dinah’s spine, marvels at how soft the skin is, scrapes her teeth against Dinah’s lips as she goes.

The make out like that for a while, Helena touching as much of Dinah as she can, until Dinah pulls away with a whine.

“You’re wearing too many fucking clothes,” she growls. She moves to take off Helena’s shirt, and Helena lets her, but she’s got too much on her mind to let Dinah get her naked right now.

She wants too much.

She surges forward to meet Dinah’s mouth again, crawling over her until Dinah is laying back on the couch, Helena hovering over her. When she breaks away, she stares down at Dinah. Her pupils are blown-wide, her chest is heaving, her skin is slick with sweat and Helena almost, almost thinks she could stare forever.

Except she’s been staring for weeks now and she can finally touch and finally taste and she _wants_ to.

She kisses down Dinah’s body, stopping for an almost embarrassing amount of time at her breasts, before kissing down her abdomen, settling herself between Dinah’s legs. She trails wet, open-mouthed kisses down her thigh.

She hasn’t really…she’s done stuff like this before but not really _this_ , but she knows…she knows how to read responses well enough to know that Dinah seems receptive. She nudges at the wet patch on Dinah's underwear with her nose, flicks her tongue against it before she hooks her fingers there and draws them down Dinah's legs, haphazardly throwing them on the floor somewhere. 

Then, finally, she gets to to taste.

She licks up and through Dinah, and the moan that she is rewarded with sends heat pooling between Helena’s own legs.

She licks and sucks at Dinah’s clit, curls her tongue inside of her, tastes everything she can. She thinks she could spend hours between Dinah’s legs.

"Helena," Dinah says, fisting her hands in Helena's hair, grinding herself against Helena's mouth, "just– _there_...yes."

When she rubs the point of her tongue just to the right of her clit while she has two fingers curling inside of Dinah she feels her walls clench, and she can feel the orgasm roll through Dinah, works her through it the best she can.

Dinah pulls her up, kisses the wetness off of Helena’s lips, somehow flipping them over in the process and _oh,_ Helena thinks.

This is so much better than drawing.

:::

It’s raining. It’s also two in the morning. They’re both still awake, wrapped around each other as they listen to the rain patter against the windows.

“Even if I fail this class,” Helena says, “I’m glad I took it.”

Dinah smiles at her. “You’re not gonna fail. You’ve been getting so much better.”

“Well, yeah,” Helena says, and shifts so she can look at Dinah properly. She’s been staring at Dinah every week, for hours tonight even before they had sex, but she still can’t get enough. “I’ve got you helping me.”

“Please,” Dinah says with a laugh, “all I did was invite you over so I could finesse the hell out of you and jump your bones.”

Helena stares at her. “You–what? You set me up?”

Dinah laughs harder. “You couldn’t tell I was into you?” she asks. Then she stops laughing, gets calm again. “No, of course I wanted to actually help you. But I just hoped…if I got naked enough times for you maybe you’d do something about it.”

“Well I did,” Helena grumbles.

Dinah leans over, kissing Helena’s shoulder, then her collarbone, then her neck. “I know, baby.” It sends shivers up Helena’s spine.

“It’s hard to draw you,” Helena says, “because my body feels like its on fire half the time.”

Dinah stares up at her. “And the other half?”

Helena swallows, because it feels a bit heavy to say right after they slept together for the first time, but before she can stop herself– “You’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen and I know I won’t be able to do you justice.”

“Yeah?”

Dinah’s voice is small, gentle.

Helena looks over at her. “I don’t think I could capture the magnificence of your smile if I had the skills of a renaissance painter and a thousand years to try.”

Dinah is staring at her and oh, god, she fucked up. It’s too much, too soon, and she’s gone and fucked it all up and–

Dinah is sliding her leg over Helena’s, so she’s hovering above her and she leans down to kiss Helena deeply. It’s late, but Helena doesn’t care. She pulls Dinah down to her.

Maybe she didn’t fuck this up, after all.

:::

It’s midterm portfolio review.

Helena stands statue-still as Professor Whitman flips through her sketchbook.

“Well done, Helena,” she says, passing her back the book. “Your detail work needs more attention, but we’ll get there. You’ve found your vision.”

Helena leaves class that day and meets Dinah at the coffee shop, and when they’re at Dinah’s place later, she absently doodles Dinah’s eyes even as she proofreads her engineering lab.

Art, she thinks. Maybe isn’t so bad.


	2. Pour Your Heart on Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Helena and Dinah work through some jealousy, and Helena actually passes her art class.

Helena loves being with Dinah (why wouldn’t she?). She loves hanging out with her and kissing her and having sex with her and she loves the conversations they have. She loves the way Dinah curls into her when they sleep, the way Dinah never, ever seems intimidated by her.

The semester’s almost over, and she’s not failing art. She likes walking to studio with Dinah, loves when Dinah drops her robe and Helena gets to sketch the hickeys she left on Dinah’s thigh or hip.

They try to keep things professional in class, but moments like that give Helena more pride than she cares to admit.

She loves drawing Dinah, even if she doesn’t love drawing.

Sometimes, though…

It’s not that she doesn’t want Dinah to model. It’s not that she thinks Dinah’s body is only hers to look at or that she has any say over her body (fuck, they haven’t even labelled what they are yet, anyway). She knows it’s shitty to be jealous, and she’s not! She’s absolutely not, it’s just that she’s, well.

Okay. Fine. She’s jealous.

She hates seeing Roman or Oliver or any of the other idiots in class ogling her or using horrible pick-up lines on her. She hates it.

But she knows it’s stupid and she knows it’s not fair so she just. Doesn’t say anything. Besides, they switch back to male models for a few weeks, and it stops being an issue.

(Dinah still models for her in private, anyway. Helena is really, _really_ starting to like art)

:::

Three weeks left until classes end and reading days begin.

It's their third-to-last studio session and Helena is almost late, but as she’s setting up her work space, trying to ignore her classmates chatter, Dinah comes in. Even though they’re together and even though Helena gets to see her (naked _and_ clothed) all the time, she still can’t help but stare. She's just _so_ stunning.

She notices Dinah’s carrying two coffees today. She walks right over to Helena, handing her one of the coffees. Helena almost protests until she notices its her favorite coffee from her favorite cafe. The one that actually knows how to make good coffee. The kind of coffee her parents or uncles drank. Helena looks up and she can feel herself melting. She's probably looking at Dinah like she hung the moon.

“Hey, babe,” Dinah says, giving her a quick kiss before disappearing behind the partition.

Everyone is staring at her. They’d never really done that in the classroom before. She should be embarrassed, but she feels…

She feels really fucking good.

She knows she probably looks like an asshole the rest of class, because she knows she’s got a smug smile on her face, and she absolutely spends too long drawing Dinah’s thighs and the hickey that’s in the hollow of her hip but she can’t help it.

She still hates the way some of the other kids look at her but it’s not the worst, she thinks.

After class, she waits for Dinah to get dressed, then drives her home on her motorbike.

Maybe she doesn’t have to be jealous, after all.

:::

The next studio class, Professor Whitman is chatting with Dinah while they wait for the rest of the students to file in. Helena isn’t listening, not really, but she can’t help but hear bits and pieces of their conversation.

“-could use you again next semester,” Professor Whitman is saying. “Think about it.”

Helena, somehow, manages not to whip her head up at that.

She hadn’t…

Maybe it’s stupid, but she hadn’t realized Dinah might do this again. That infuriating jealousy is back, curling in her quietly. She hates it. It feels _bad_.

But the idea of Dinah posing naked for people who don’t know where she got that hickey? When Helena can’t just cross the room at the end of class and kiss her? She doesn’t like it.

But it’s not her call, she reminds herself.

Dinah’s body, Dinah’s choice. Always.

Everyone files in and greats ready. They’re doing a lot of detail work today, and Helena can deal with that. She can focus on the flecks of gold in Dinah’s eyes, the fullness of her lips, or the arch of her brow.

“Looking good, Dinah,” one of the guys, Oliver, says casually as he hauls his easel even closer.

“I’m not even naked, Ollie,” Dinah says boredly, but the nickname makes Helena glare at him. 

“You don’t have to be naked to look good,” he replies. “But I’m certainly not complaining when you disrobe.”

Helena’s gonna kill him.

She knows anatomy. She could just stab her pencil in his neck _just so_ , and it’d be done. Instead, she grinds her jaw and turns back to her paper. She can tell him to fuck off, but that makes her seem jealous. She is, but still. She can say hey, that’s my girlfriend, except that haven’t had that talk yet, and Helena really thinks they should clear things up before she goes using that word.

If she pouts and glares her way through the class, it’s not her fault. Well. Not wholly. She gets lost in Dinah, which isn't that hard, but she knows she's sulking.

Helena packs up quickly that day, so that when Dinah’s done getting dressed, Helena is ready to go, even though they’re usually the last ones out. Today there are still students packing up. Like Oliver.

“You’re done?” Dinah asks, surprised.

Helena nods and, very uncharacteristically, she wraps an arm around Dinah’s waist as they walk towards the exit.

It’s not even that she’s showing off that Dinah is with her. It’s that she’s showing off that she gets to do this. _She_ gets to touch. Dinah _lets her_ touch. And god, after an hour of sitting there just staring, not allowed to do more than look, stewing in her own jealousy, she _wants_ to touch.

Dinah can tell something’s up. She always does. Dinah has an uncanny ability to always know when Helena’s feeling off, but she doesn’t ask about it.

Helena drives them to Dinah’s place and manages to keep her hands to herself while Dinah opens the door, but as soon as they’re inside, Helena presses her up against the door and kisses her hard.

Dinah gasps in surprise, but it’s broken by a moan as Helena slips her tongue into her mouth. She kisses Dinah, wet and hurried, until they need air, and she kisses down Dinah’s neck after that.

“Jesus, baby,” Dinah gasps as Helena grabs her hips, pulling her even closer. Dinah’s hands are gripping her hair hard, but Helena doesn’t mind.

Helena works on a nice hickey on Dinah’s collarbone, feels a little embarrassed by how much she needs to mark her up right now, but the sounds Dinah’s making says that she doesn’t seem to mind.

Dinah knows what she’s doing, though.

“Tryna leave a mark, killer?” Dinah asks.

Helena kind of hates and loves that stupid nickname at the same time.

Helena doesn’t answer, just runs her tongue over the aggrieved skin. She picks Dinah up then, hands under her thighs, and carries her back towards Dinah’s bedroom.

She gets Dinah naked but takes her time teasing her, kissing her everywhere except the places she knows Dinah wants her to kiss most. She drags her tongue over her clit once before going back to mouth at her thigh, and Dinah lets out a strangled moan.

“Helena, _please._ ”

So Helena obliges.

She fucks Dinah until the neighbors bang on the wall because of how loud Dinah is being. She doesn’t even stop when Dinah comes for the first (or second) time. She doesn’t stop until Dinah physically has to push her away, smiling and sweaty as she does.

“Baby, I’m so tired, please.”

Helena obliges, cleaning off her fingers with her tongue and then wiping the wet from her mouth as she crawls up the bed. She presses feather-light kisses to Dinah’s body as she goes, just because she can, and she feels the way Dinah’s muscles are still shaking.

Helena didn’t even come and she feels completely sated.

Dinah leans forward to kiss Helena. “What the fuck was that?”

Helena shrugs. “Wanted to taste you.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Dinah laughs. She pushes herself up onto her elbows, groaning as she does, and leans over Helena. She has a mischievous glint in her eye. “You jealous, babe?”

Helena scoffs, even though her stomach clenches. “Of who?”

Dinah gets soft then. “Helena.”

Helena swallows and fights the urge to pull the blankets up over her face to hide. She looks Dinah in the eye. “Yes. I hate it. But I am.”

“Why do you hate it?”

Helena gestures vaguely. “This is your job! It’s your thing and it’s not fair of me to care about it but…I do.”

She covers her face with her hands, feeling like the worst… _whatever_ she is to Dinah ever. Dinah gently pries Helena’s hands away from her face so she has to look at her.

Dinah smiles. “It’s just something for some extra cash, I’m not attached to it or anything. It’s just a fucking gig. It’s really not that important.”

“I know,” Helena says. “I don’t want you to think I feel like I have ownership of you or your body.”

Dinah presses closer to Helena, reaching up to wipe a stray hair out of her face. The action is so gentle, so tender, Helena could cry. She doesn’t, but she could.

“First of all, I know that. Please, you think I’d be with you otherwise?” she says. “But it’s really sweet that you care that much. Jealousy is just an emotion, baby. It’s okay to feel it.”

“But it sucks,” Helena says, and she can hear the pout in her voice. Dinah laughs and kisses Helena quickly.

Dinah presses more kisses to Helena’s mouth, and then her jaw, then her neck. “Baby, I really wanna fuck you, but you wore me the hell out,” she says, and Helena feels a trickle of pride at that. “Till I can fuck you in the morning – remember this. They might get to look, but only you get to touch.”

:::

Classes end. On the last day of studio, instead of going back to Dinah’s apartment, the whole class goes out for drinks to celebrate.

They still have finals ( _so many_ finals, in Helena’s case), but their portfolios are submitted and it’s at least one thing done. So yes. Celebration. 

It’s a dive bar close to campus and it’s so crowded with people and it reeks of stale beer but it’s okay. It’s okay because Dinah is here, and smiling and that makes everything all the better. It’s cold as shit outside, but the dive is hot and humid with sweat. It’s disgusting. Despite the heat, she’s still content to let Dinah lean on her.

Helena is even feeling a little celebratory herself, because she doesn't have the grade on her portfolio yet but she's proud of it, and Dinah looked over it, was also so proud of her and that's really all that matters. Oh, and Professor Whitman told her "Good work" when she flipped through it today. She's going to pass. She's finishing this class with a new set hobby, a steady GPA and a...whatever she and Dinah are. She's probably had the best semester of her life and it's all thanks to one stupid (or not so stupid) art class. 

“I’m gonna go get a refill,” Dinah says, pulling away from Helena, who tries not to pout. “You want another vodka tonic?”

Helena nods and watches Dinah walk over to the bar.

“Hiya, Helena.”

Helena turns to see Harley standing very, very close. Harley is also an art major (Helena is pretty sure. Harley’s always in the studio, but she’s never actually seen her in any class)

“Hi,” she says nervously. Between Dinah’s stories from their freshman year and the few interactions Helena has had with her, she can’t say she’s exactly comfortable around the woman. She likes her alright, but she’s a lot.

“D’you think you passed?” Harley asks. She’s drinking some abomination of a drink that’s nearly neon pink.

“I think so,” Helena says, mostly to be polite. “How about your class? Your piece is…interesting?”

Harley does a lot of mixed media. Sometimes she’s creating statues or sculptures using professional grade welding equipment and power tools, sometimes she’s painting abstract art using neon paint and her body as the brush. She once tattooed herself and submitted it for a final. Or so goes the rumor anyway. It’s all very…abstracted. Harley calls it ‘avant-garde’. Helena isn’t sure how Harley is passing, but apparently, she is.

The piece she’s been working on this semester is a living statue, made from recycled and upcycled materials, creating a statue of a woman. Harley then propagated plants that are strategically completing the figure, whether they make up a dress, or her hair, or something else. It’s…honestly way better than it has any right to be.

Harley calls it _Pam_.

“Oh that?” Harley says. “That’s just for fun.”

“For…fun?” Helena asks.

Harley looks at her like she's crazy. “I haven't taken an art elective since last year,” she says, popping her bubblegum. “I've got to destress from all of the psych labs _somehow_.”

Psych? Harley is a _psych_ major? What the fuck?

If that’s what Harley does for fun, Helena can’t even imagine what she does for class. That thing has taken Harley hours and hours. And it’s not even for a grade. Helena can’t even begin to fathom that.

“Yep,” Harley says, popping the _P_. “Hey,” she says, switching topics so fast that Helena gets whiplash. “Is that your bike outside?”

“Yes?” Helena says. It is, but she’s not sure where this is going.

Harley gets close, real close, and smiles up at Helena.

“You wanna give me a ride sometime?”

“On the bike?” Helena chokes.

Harley’s grin only grows. “Duh, on the bike,” she says. Then her eyes trail down Helena’s body. “But if you’re offerin’…”

“I’m not,” Helena says quickly.

“No?” Harley pouts. She reaches over, innocently squeezing Helena’s bicep. She’s not being forceful or anything, but she is being touchy, and Helena is very, very confused as to what’s going on.

“Hey, baby.”

Helena turns to find Dinah making her way back, relief seeping through her. Dinah, however, isn’t looking at Helena. She's zeroed in on Harley and the glare she's leveling at her is _sharp_.

“Hey Dinah,” Harley sing-songs.

“You playing nice, Harley?” Dinah asks.

“Very,” Harley says. She'd grinning like she knows what she's doing, and Helena wouldn't be surprised if she does. 

Dinah’s jaw tightens and Helena pulls away from Harley, slipping out of her hands. Dinah slides an arm around Helena’s waist, sliding her hand into Helena’s back pocket. “Is she?” Dinah asks, pressing a kiss to the underside of Helena’s jaw.

“Yes,” Helena says. “She wants a ride on my bike.”

Dinah pulls back, looks up at her, and then at Harley. “That so?” she asks. Harley nods, sipping on her straw. “Mmm, sorry, girlfriends only.”

Helena feels herself go hot at that. They haven’t…they still haven’t talked about that but the word coming out of Dinah’s mouth does something to her.

Helena is staring at Dinah. She knows that. She knows that the scene right now probably looks wildly intimate, knows anyone with a pair of eyes can see that she’s looking at Dinah too heatedly considering they’re in public, but when Dinah looks up at her, hungry and possessive, even, Helena can’t find it in herself.

“Say goodnight to Harley, honey,” Dinah says.

“Night Harley,” Helena chokes out and lets Dinah lead her outside. She can’t get them home fast enough.

This time, it’s Dinah who pushes Helena against the door. It’s Dinah who kisses her hard and needy, teeth scraping against lips, hands gripping determinedly. It’s Dinah who goes to work marking up Helena’s neck like it’s her job.

“W-Who’s jealous now?” Helena stammers, squeezing her thighs together as Dinah drags her tongue over a sensitive spot of skin.

Dinah pulls back to look at her. She undoes Helena’s pants in one fluid motion. When she steps into Helena’s space again, she crowds her so all she can hear, smell and feel is Dinah.

Then she slips a hand into Helena’s underwear, stroking her.

“Fuck,” Helena pants, slamming her head back against the door.

“Careful, baby,” Dinah murmurs, because even when she’s like _this_ , she’s still tender. She thumbs at Helena’s clit and then leans up to suck Helena’s lower lip into her mouth. “Are you mine, Helena?”

The moan that draws out of Helena is embarrassing, but she doesn’t care. “Yes.”

Dinah stills her hand and Helena thinks she’s going to go feral. She cants her hips forward, searching for friction. “Say it, sweetheart.”

Helena whimpers. “I’m yours, Dinah.”

She thought it was obvious. She’s so far gone for Dinah. She grinds down, but Dinah’s fingers slip just out of reach. The noise Helena makes is embarrassing. This isn’t fair. Not even remotely.

Blissfully, Dinah slips two fingers into Helena, curling at just the right angle every time she crooks them. “Again,” she pants against Helena’s neck.

The room is getting warm, and Helena can see the sweat starting to glisten on Dinah’s shoulders. She’s never felt luckier in her life. (Except for every other day with Dinah)

“Yours. God, _yours_.”

Then Dinah withdraws from her and Helena wants to cry…until Dinah is sinking onto her knees, taking Helena’s pants down with her.

:::

“Are we going to talk about it?” Helena asks in bed after.

This is one of her favorite places to be. In bed with Dinah, whether they're having sex or not, just together, in the quiet, knowing that the other is just a few inches away. Also, Dinah's bed is ridiculously comfortable. 

“About what?” Dinah asks sleepily. “That I was jealous?”

It still shoots hot between Helena’s legs, even hours later. “Well, no, but that was…nice.”

Dinah snorts. “See, we both get jealous,” she says, reaching over to stroke Helena's hand. “What did you want to talk about?

Helena rolls over to face Dinah. “The um. The girlfriend thing?”

“You sleepin’ with other people and not telling me, Killer?”

Helena looks at Dinah, horrified. “No! _No_ ,” she says. “I just wasn’t sure about what we were. Are.”

“I was kidding, sweetie.” Dinah scoots over so she can press a kiss to Helena’s shoulder. “And…if it’s okay with you, I’d really like to be your girlfriend, Helena Bertinelli.”

Helena nudges at Dinah’s cheek with her nose. Even after sex, Dinah smells so good. “I’d love that.”

Helena closes her eyes, ready to go to sleep, when she hears Dinah say–

“Oh, and I’m not modeling next semester.”

Helena’s eyes fly open and she looks down at Dinah. “Dinah – what? You didn’t have–” Dinah puts a finger to her lips, silencing her.

“Didn’t do it for you, babe. I hate the stupid comments as much you do, y’know,” she says. She shrugs, snuggling closer to Helena. “Besides, I kind of want to keep some things for just between us.”

“Like the motorcycle?”

“Yeah. Like that.”

“Okay. As long as you’re sure,” Helena says.

Dinah nods, but her eyes are closed and Helena can tell she’s already halfway to sleep by now. “I’m sure.’

Helena settles back down into bed after that, keeping her arms around Dinah. She doesn’t fall asleep right away, just listens as Dinah’s breathing evens out.

Dinah. Dinah Lance. Her _girlfriend_.

She goes to sleep smiling like an idiot.


	3. Can't Take My Eyes Off You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a little different than the other two - it's more of an epilogue of sorts. It just felt wrong to write this AU and not let Dinah have her say. So here is Dinah, the art major, waxing poetic about Helena for nearly 5000 words. This story could really be summed up as "Dinah and Helena get turned on making art of each other".

Dinah’s favorite thing to draw is Helena. Helena doesn’t really know it, because Dinah hasn’t shown her many of her sketches. Most of what she does is from memory, or stolen glances. She does this because the one time she tried to just sit and draw Helena, Helena grew so self-conscious she couldn’t stop moving.

They’ve been together almost a year now, both in their final year of college, only two semesters left to go. Dinah’s working on her capstone, her thesis portfolio. It’ll go all year, and she’s got some art she knows she wants in it, and a few projects she’s working on that she’s really, really excited about but…

She really wants to put Helena in her portfolio. It won’t feel complete without her.

She’ll give it some time, she thinks. Work her way up to the offer.

:::

They study in Dinah’s (now their) apartment, unless Helena absolutely is dying from some problem set she’s working on, in which case she barricades herself in a lab or the library until Dinah comes to get her and bring her home.

Most days, though, it’s just this.

Them, in their apartment, Helena typing rapidly on her computer and cursing at her calculator, rubbing at her eyes when the strain gets too strong. Dinah is on the other end of the couch or on the floor, or at her easel. She usually has paint on her hands, or charcoal on her face.

She thought the mess would drive Helena insane, but Helena likes it. She says it calms her, which Dinah does not get, but she thinks it’s cute.

Only one time has Helena reached for her tea and drank Dinah’s paint water instead.

Sometimes, if Helena finishes her homework first, she sits and draws too.

Dinah thinks it’s cute, and she’s happy that Helena has kept doing art even when her class ended. Sometimes (often, actually), she’ll ask Dinah to model for her. And it occasionally (usually) ends up with them collapsed on the bed in a mess of sweaty, heavy limbs.

What?

It’s like, tradition, or some shit.

“Hey,” Dinah says, nudging Helena with her foot. Helena looks up from her computer and blinks hard. “Can I sketch you for warmup today?”

Helena looks a little surprised, but she nods. “Yeah, sure.”

Dinah smiles to herself and pulls out her sketchpad and pencils. It’s not much, really, but it’s a start. It’s just a sketch, just a warm up, but Dinah is reverential.

She takes her time drawing the sharp cut of Helena’s jaw, the smooth lines of her cheekbones and nose. Someday, she think, she’s doing to make art of this woman. Real, actual art. It’s going to be incredible.

:::

Dinah loves her body. She’s confident (clearly) and she’s grateful for it. It keeps her alive and she’s a very physical person and she’s kind of enamored of the things her body lets her do. Like paint, or sculpt. Or play guitar. Or fuck Helena. All of it.

She’s rarely felt hotter or more beautiful than when Helena draws her.

Helena isn’t the most talented artist, because she’s just starting out, but she’s good enough, and there’s something about the way Helena sees her that makes Dinah turn molten.

Helena takes pictures of her sometimes, too.

They both do. Dinah is usually the one to whip out her phone and get candids of Helena that she loves more than anything, but Helena has this vintage camera she paid a shit ton of money to have restored. She takes _photos_ of Dinah, when she’s feeling too impatient to try to get anything on paper by hand and those…

When they get the prints back, they never fail to take Dinah’s breath away. It might feel weird to someone else to get so moved by pictures of herself, but Dinah actually likes herself. It’s not just that, though.

They show her herself through Helena’s eyes and the experience is the closest thing Dinah’s ever felt to holy.

They’ve been together long enough now that a lot of their time is spent laughing at each other and making the same dumb jokes a thousand times or just sitting in silence, working in the same space but…

When the opportunity presents itself, they’re still almost reverent of each other. Nowhere is that more clear than in Helena’s photographs, or her drawings.

Dinah wants nothing more than to return the favor.

“What’re you thinking about?” Helena murmurs. She’s got her camera in her hand and she’s straddling Dinah on the couch so that she can get a shot of Dinah laying back against the cushions, and it’s not even scandalous but something about it feels wildly intimate.

Dinah hardly even notices the camera any more. That’s how good Helena has gotten.

“You,” she says honestly, shifting under Helena’s hips and licking her lips. “Wanna draw you.”

Helena snorts and lifts her camera, taking a quick shot of something Dinah must be showing in her face that she doesn’t realize. She never realized how much she spoke with her eyes until Helena started photographing her.

“That seems like a waste,” Helena says matter-of-factly and Dinah wants to protest, but Helena is reaching forward, moving her head just slightly to get the angle she wants and Dinah lets the subject drop.

:::

They spend winter break together, because they don’t really have family to go home to. They get a tiny, tiny tree and put it up in their apartment and bake cookies and listen to old records of Christmas music. Campus is quiet. It mostly empties over break, and it feels like it’s just the two of them.

It’s kind of nice.

Helena cooks a big Christmas Eve dinner even though Dinah insists she doesn’t have to, and they stay up watching Home Alone and drinking red wine. She puts on Bing Crosby and slow dances with Helena in the soft glow of the Christmas lights, still holding her wine glass in her hand.

It’s the best Christmas she’s had in a really, really long time.

:::

The first day of classes, Helena comes home and says. “What’re you doing for Spring Break?”

Dinah looks up from her English Lit paper and stares at Helena. “What?”

Helena drops her bag on the floor and shrugs. “Spring Break?”

Dinah closes her laptop because this stupid Gen Ed requirement (which she stupidly saved for the last semester) is driving her insane. “You wanna go on Spring Break?”

“I mean,” Helena flops on the couch and Dinah bites her lip to stop from smiling. She’s just so cute. “Not the one everyone else is going to. But you and me…we could go somewhere, right?”

Dinah pauses. It’s not the worst idea. But… “With what money, baby?”

“My money.”

Yeah, Helena is an unfortunate trust fund baby. Unfortunate because her whole family had to die for her to get it, and the rest of her upbringing was so abnormal that she has no idea what to do with it. Dinah knows she donates a chunk each year to a different charity. She also tries to blow some of it on Dinah (not that they could even make a dent in it), but Dinah refuses to let Helena be her meal ticket.

They split rent on the apartment. Helena is allowed one gift on Christmas or birthdays to go overboard with. _One._

She knows Helena isn’t trying to buy her love or anything, that Helena just wants to show Dinah that she loves her anyway she can, but it’s the principle of the matter. She’s pretty sure that Helena paying for them to go on some fancy spring break trip crosses that principle, too.

“Mmm, I don’t know,” Dinah says. “I don’t wanna be a burden.”

Helena looks deadly serious as she says, “Never.” She flips over onto her stomach and looks up at Dinah earnestly. “Just think about it?”

“Okay,” Dinah says and leans down to kiss her. “I’ll think about it.”

It’s January. They’re both working on theses. They’re probably not even going to remember that Spring Break exists until the day before or some shit.

:::

Valentine’s Day is a chill day for them. They decided that last year when they were still only a few months together and their first Valentine’s Day rolled around. Dinah had been able to sense Helena’s panic a mile away and out of love for her girlfriend and out of concern that Helena might buy her like, a fancy car or some shit, Dinah had set some ground rules early.

No presents, no fancy dinners, no pants.

Those are the rules.

She’s open to changing them in the future if their wants or whims change but for now they work for them.

Helena, poor baby, has a lab on Valentine’s Day this year, so she’s gone for four hours straight, getting lost in long-ass formulas and whatever else it is she does as STEM major.

Dinah orders tacos from their favorite place and picks them up when Helena’s class is ten minutes from being over. She takes them back to the apartment, steps out of her pants (rules are rules!) and puts on a record. She’s trying to make the place as welcoming and stress-free as she can.

Helena is fifteen minutes late.

Dinah isn’t mad, just worried, and it really doesn’t matter because the tacos aren’t soggy or anything, but fuck, she just hopes Helena isn’t having like, a mental breakdown or something.

Helena has this work ethic that is…insane, really, this way she gets hyper-focused on something. She’s gotten a lot better about it in the past year, to be honest, and it doesn’t bother Dinah but it does occasionally make her worry about Helena.

It turns out, she really didn’t need to worry.

Helena shows up at their door looking tired but not unhappy and she’s…well…

She’s carrying more flowers than Dinah thought one person could carry. There are like three bouquets of roses and an orchid, there are lilies and tulips–

“Baby, what is all this?” Dinah asks, taking some of the flowers from Helena. “We don’t do presents.”

Helena shrugs. “These aren’t presents. They’re flowers. You never said no flowers.”

“Helena–”

“I wanted to do something for you.”

Dinah stares at all of the flowers on the kitchen counter (seriously, what are they going to do with these? They only have like three vases in the apartment) and she melts. She leans into Helena and kisses her.

“I guess,” she says in between kisses, “it’s not really breaking the no-present rule.”

Helena smiles against Dinah’s lips, pulls her close.

“No?”

Dinah pulls back, tugs at the zipper of the stupid (but cute) windbreaker Helena loves to wear. “No…but you still are breaking a rule right now.”

Helena pulls back, furrowing her brows. “What?”

Dinah grins up at her. “No pants, baby.”

Helena barks out a laugh and obediently steps out of her pants. Dinah bites her lips as she watches but before she can get close, something over her shoulder catches Helena’s eye.

“Tacos!”

So yeah. They eat tacos. They find vases for (most) of the flowers and sit on the living room floor and eat tacos. Helena gets hot sauce on her face and Dinah just stares at her a moment.

She wants to draw her so badly. Like this, too. With sauce on her face and shaggy hair from the way she had to rush out of the shower this morning. With dark circles under her eyes from how little she’s been sleeping – staying up late to work on her thesis instead.

“What?” Helena says, and wipes the wrong side of her face.

“Nothing,” Dinah says, shaking her head. Then she leans forward, licks the hot sauce from Helena’s cheek. “I love you."

She feels Helena smile, lean into her touch. “I love you too,” she says.

:::

“What about Hawaii?”

Despite Dinah’s prediction at the start of the semester, Helena has not, actually, forgotten about her idea to take them both on some fancy Spring Break trip.

She’s sitting on the couch and Dinah is sitting on the floor between her legs as they work, but Helena is apparently still thinking about it.

“Baby, that’s a long ass flight,” Dinah muses as she looks over the notes from her last art crit. Her classmates are fucking stupid, but her professors get what she’s going for at least. “And it’s expensive.”

“It’s not–”

Dinah leans up to kiss her, stopping that sentence. “It’s going to ruin you, I know,” she says. “That doesn’t mean it’s not a lot of money.”

Helena looks down nervously. Talking about money is…it’s not hard, but it’s not easy, either. Helena doesn’t know what she’s doing, either, still operates like a broke college kid half the time because she would be if she didn’t have this weird legacy hanging over her head. Dinah used to judge people who said having money was kind of a curse but for Helena, it sort of is.

Dinah sighs and puts down her notes. She turns around and rests her chin on Helena’s thigh. “How about a deal.”

Helena tilts her head in question. “For what?”

“Spring break,” Dinah says. “I’ll let you take me…not anywhere, but somewhere nice. If–”

“I’ll do it.”

“Baby,” Dinah laughs, “let me _say it_ first.”

“Fine.”

“I’ll let you take me on Spring Break if you let me draw you. Or paint you. For real. For my portfolio.”

There’s a beat of silence after that and Helena looks…well, a little confused.

“Okay,” she says slowly, but Dinah senses that’s not the end of it. “I can do that. But I don’t know why you’d want to draw me.”

Dinah pushes up off of the floor, sitting next to Helena on the couch. “Do I need a reason?”

Helena shrugs. “No, but I don’t get it.”

Dinah looks at her. “Why do you like to draw me?”

Helena looks at her with that look again. It’s intense and it’s sappy and it makes Dinah feel…god, it makes her breathing uneven and her body go hot and it’s just a fucking look.

“You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

Dinah smiles leans in to kiss Helena. “Yeah, well, same, honey.”

Helena pulls back, but she doesn’t look upset. She just looks genuinely puzzled. “I’m not…art.” Dinah opens her mouth to protest (loudly and firmly), but Helena holds up a hand. “I like my body. I’m an athlete and everything I do I owe to this. But you’re…you have shapes within you and curves and I’m just hard lines. And angles. You’re poetry and I’m…math.”

Dinah scoots forward, makes Helena look at her.

“You gonna tell there ain’t poetry in math?” she asks. “I mean, I’m not a numbers girl, but I know that there’s all kinds of beauty in the world. Helena, baby, you’re hot, but you’re more than that. The lines of your face–” she reaches out to traces Helena’s cheek bones “–are insane. The golden ratio could probably be mapped onto your features. Your sharp edges – physical or otherwise – don’t make you less beautiful.”

Dinah wonders if she’s overdone it, but Helena offers her the smallest of smiles, her secret smile, the one Dinah has never, ever seen unless Helena is smiling at her.

“So you’ll let me?” Dinah asks.

“I already said yes,” Helena reminds her.

It’s true, but Dinah feels better about it, now. She sinks back onto the floor to finish reading her notes and then, when she’s done, she takes Helena to bed and shows her every part of her body that she’s in love with.

They’re up for a long, long time.

:::

Helena takes them to Hawaii for Spring Break. She blows a good chunk of money, Dinah knows, because they’re flying first class which is insane, but Helena swears she didn’t even know that when she bought the tickets.

Honestly, knowing Helena, Dinah is inclined to believe her. She even seems more uncomfortable during the flight than Dinah does.

The place she rented though is…

It’s not big. Which is good. They don’t need it to be. But it’s gorgeous and it’s _right_ on the beach. And it’s not locked away at some resort, they can walk and get food and actually be part of the island they’re staying on, it’s not isolated away from island life (although it _is_ gloriously private) and Dinah thinks that Helena knows her really, really well.

She falls a little bit more in love with her and it’s not because of the money Helena is spending on her – on them – but because of the care she clearly took when doing this.

“I’m never gonna wanna leave,” she says, standing on the deck and looking over the empty beach.

“I mean,” Helena comes up behind Dinah and wraps her arms around her, drops a kiss onto her shoulder, “I can arrange that.”

Dinah smacks her playfully, then nestles into Helena’s arms. “You’ve spoiled me enough, Killer.”

Helena hums to herself.

It’s funny. It’s a perfect view, Dinah thinks, with the white sand and the clear water and the brilliant sky...but all she wants to paint is the woman behind her.

:::

They spend the first two days of spring break eating, swimming and having sex. They’re two of the best days of Dinah’s life, if she’s being honest. She doesn’t want to enjoy this as much as she is, but honestly by the end of the first day she stopped fighting it and just let herself enjoy it. She works hard. A break…a break is good.

Day three, she pulls out a pad of paper and some paints (because yes, she packed her art supplies) and sits out on the deck, painting the sunset and the water. Helena sits next to her, taking pictures on her camera.

After the sun has set, Dinah turns to Helena. “Can I start tonight?” she asks.

Helena doesn’t need to ask what she’s talking about. She nods once and they go back inside. Dinah pulls out her sketchpad and charcoal Helena stands in front of her, clearly unsure of what to do.

“We’ll start small,” Dinah says. “Just a quick drawing, I’ll focus on your face. That way you don’t have to sit still for too long.”

“I can sit still,” Helena says.

It’s true. Sometimes, when she’s reading, Helena sits so still that Dinah won’t even notice she’s in the room. Helena sits on a chair in their bedroom, and Dinah sits crosslegged on the bed. She can still see the tightness of Helena’s muscles.

“Breathe, baby,” she says. “You’re doing great.”

“I’m just sitting here.”

Dinah grins to herself as she gets the first lines on the page. “Yeah,” she says. “I know.”

Helena does relax and Dinah plays some music on her phone as she works. Tonight, she takes her time drawing the slope of Helena’s nose, the way her hair falls haphazardly to one side, or the slope of her lips. Helena is right that her features are angular. Sharp. It’s more attractive than Dinah can explain.

She’s never gotten turned on while drawing before, and it’s muted now (the art comes first), but fuck, if her girlfriend isn’t gorgeous.

She spends forever on Helena’s eyes, trying to get the emotion right, the strange balance of intensity and softness that Helena simultaneously carries in her.

When she’s done, Dinah pulls back and looks at her first portrait of Helena.

She’s proud of it. She’s really, really proud of it.

She looks up at Helena. “Wanna see?” she asks.

Helena doesn’t say anything, just nods. She doesn’t even get out of her chair. Dinah flips the sketchpad over. She watches Helena’s eyes move as she takes in every detail.

“Okay?” Dinah asks eventually.

Helena’s gaze snaps up to hers and she gets out of her chair. She takes the sketchpad and looks at it for another moment, and then she sets it on the dresser. Then she crawls over Dinah until they’re both laying on the bed, slotting herself between Dinah’s legs.

She doesn’t even kiss her. Not right away. She nudges at Dinah’s cheek with her nose, ghosts her lips over Dinah’s neck.

“It’s beautiful,” she says, breath hot against Dinah’s neck. Dinah bites her lip to keep quiet, trying not to shift under Helena. “You’re so good.”

“Yeah?”

Helena nods, finally kissing Dinah’s neck, and her jaw, and her cheekbone. “That’s how you see me?”

Dinah does shift under her then, grinding their hips together and reaching up to tangle her hands in Helena’s hair, pulling her so they’re face to face. “Yeah, baby.”

Helena smiles down at her, actually smiles, and is gentle, so gentle, when she kisses Dinah.

Helena moves slow, rocking against Dinah at an excruciating pace, making no move to pick things up. She swipes her tongue into Dinah’s mouth but that, too, is slow. She is gentle when she slips Dinah’s shirt up and over her head, and when she trails her hands down Dinah’s body, her touch is feather-light and she leaves goosebumps in her wake.

Normally, when they do this, Helena is so desperate in her need to touch and taste. Even when they have lazy sex, Helena’s desire is this red-hot thing. This isn’t desperate, and it’s not slow or lazy, either it’s…

Dinah sighs as Helena presses small, light kisses down her abdomen.

It’s intentional. Reverential.

She hasn’t even touched Dinah yet, not the way she's dying to be touched, and Dinah’s already so wet.

“Baby…” she breathes out.

Helena sucks at her hipbone, ever so lightly, not even enough to leave a mark, blowing her breath over the spot when she’s done.

“Be patient,” Helena breathes, gliding her fingers up one of Helena’s thighs. Dinah cants her hips forward but finds no friction to help relieve her. “We’ve got all night.”

Dinah finds Helena’s free hand, lacing their fingers together. Okay, she thinks. She can be patient.

:::

They go out and explore the town they’re staying in. They swim when they can. Helena reads. And Dinah? Dinah paints or draws Helena every chance she gets. She’s going to leave this trip with nearly a dozen pieces of Helena.

She almost doesn’t want to leave.

Her favorite souvenir isn’t even really a souvenir. The picture on her lockscreen is now one of Helena eating shaved ice, hair mussed from the salt water and sea air, wearing Dinah’s sunglasses and looking way too hot in a Hawaiian-shirt that some middle-aged white dad would wear in Florida.

Dinah’s absolutely enamored with it.

:::

Dinah gets home from class to find Helena sitting at the upright piano Dinah has shoved in a corner of their living room.

“What’re you doing, killer?” she asks.

Helena looks up at her. “I, um,” she pauses, blushing. “Trying to find a way to de-stress.”

Dinah smirks. “Is it working?”

She knows it’s not. She can see the way Helena’s back and shoulders are tense. She’s sitting ramrod straight. She steps out of her shoes and sits next to Helena.

“I…thought it would be easier,” Helena admits. “My mom was looking for piano lessons for me. Before…everything.”

Dinah takes Helena’s hands and positions them on the keys. Then she puts her hands over hers.

“Just follow me,” she whispers. She guides Helena through something simple – just “Hot Cross Buns” to start. The notes are overly staccato at first, and she plunks her way through it, but on the third try, it actually sounds like there’s a melody there.

Helena grins as the song starts to emerge and Dinah switches them to something a little less grating, but still easy. Just some scales and arpeggios.

Dinah plays on muscle-memory alone so she can watch Helena’s face as she stares determinedly down at the keys, her tongue poking out between her lips. Dinah can’t help it, she leans against Helena and presses a kiss to her lips, breaking her concentration.

“Dinah!”

“Sorry!” she laughs. “You just…”

“What?”

Dinah shakes her head. “Love you.”

Helena rolls her eyes but she smiles. “Love you too.”

:::

“Would you let me draw you naked?”

Helena’s head whips up and she drops the pencil from her mouth in surprise. “What?” she asks.

Dinah sips her tea before replying. “Would you be comfortable with me doing a portrait of you naked. Not anything scandalous. Your figure is just kind of insane, with the musculature and everything. I’d love to draw it. You.”

Helena leans back against the couch. Dinah fully expects Helena to say no, and she’s fine with that, she knows it’s a lot to ask.

But she’s been thinking about it nonstop since Hawaii and she thought she might as well ask.

“Okay,” Helena says.

“Wait, really?”

Helena shrugs, like it’s obvious. “I trust you.”

That’s how, a few days later, Dinah finds herself in their apartment with the curtains drawn. Helena is standing in front of her, completely naked, angled so that her back is most prominently displayed.

It’s a long day, this time. Helena is a saint, standing there for hours as Dinah takes painstaking effort to draw the muscles of her back, her arms, her legs. The curve of her ass. The planes of her shoulder blades.

The old fading scars and other sports-related-injuries that are mapped out on her body.

They take breaks, of course, but Dinah thinks this might be some of her best work yet. It’s not exactly stylized, but it’s surprisingly emotionally charged. She’s getting the details of Helena down, taking the artistry of her body and committing it to paper.

“You’re my favorite thing to draw,” Dinah husks out when she’s almost done for the day. “I could draw you for days. Every inch of you.”

“Dinah,” Helena says softly.

“It’s true.”

“You can’t say that,” Helena says and it sounds strangled.

“Why?”

Helena makes a sound. “You’re…fuck, you’re turning me on.”

Dinah laughs. “Yeah, baby, welcome to the club.”

:::

“Why the fuck did I major in Engineering?”

It’s the first thing Helena asks when she comes into the apartment one day. She gets like this a lot towards the end of the semester. Dinah can’t blame her. She’s seen the work Helena has to do. Not that Dinah think her majors are any easier, but there’s something torturous about Helena’s work.

Dinah looks up from her work. “Because you’re good at it?”

Helena snorts. “It’s…god, I hate it.” She doesn't, really, but sometimes she needs to vent. Dinah gets it.

“C’mere,” Dinah says, spreading her knees so that Helena can sit on the floor between them. Helena does as told and Dinah starts to run her fingers through Helena’s hair, massaging her scalp.

“I mean, what the fuck am I going to do with an engineering degree?” Helena asks.

Dinah bites her lip to keep from laughing. “Y’know, that’s what most people usually ask art majors.”

Helena drops her head back, looking up at Dinah from her lap.

“What’re you doing after graduation?”

Dinah shrugs. “I was thinking about getting an MFA. Apply next fall or something. Art and music…ain’t exactly stable work, but I wouldn’t mind teaching on the side.”

Helena hums at that, closes her eyes as Dinah’s fingers work through her hair. “You’d be a good teacher,” she says softly. “We could do it together. Open up our own place. You teach art and music, I’ll teach photography.”

Dinah laughs and leans down to press a kiss to Helena’s forehead. “Baby, that takes money.”

“I’d bankroll us,” she murmurs. “And ask my parents old friends to invest.”

Dinah lets herself get a little lost in the dream for a moment. Her and Helena running a little art school, just teaching kids and doing art for a living. It isn’t the worst plan.

Still… “we’ve got time,” she says. “We don’t have to decide what we want to do right now.”

It’s a nice feeling, to be standing at the beginning of something. She doesn’t say it out loud, but it’s nice to be there with Helena, too.

:::

Helena shows up to Dinah’s final crit. Harley, too, and a few others. Helena looks at Dinah’s portfolio of work – pictures of landscapes and a still life or two and a few abstract pieces and…

Pieces upon pieces of Helena. Pictures of her face, paintings of her against the backdrop of Hawaii, or curled up on their couch at the apartment. One that's just a hyper-realistic drawing of her lips, another of her eye - trying to capture all of the colors that are threaded there when the light hits her iris just right.

Dinah sidles up next to her, and she really, really wants to pass with flying colors, but more than anything, she wants to know what Helena thinks.

“Okay?” she asks.

Helena won’t look at her. She’s looking at a painting Dinah did after Helena came home from a boxing workout one day – all sweaty and bruised.

“I love you,” Helena says. “You’re incredible, Dinah. These are incredible. I love…” she turns and looks at Dinah. “I love seeing how you see me.”

Dinah doesn’t kiss her, because she is trying to be professional, but she laces their hands together. “Same, baby.”

They’re each other’s favorite thing to draw. It’s sappy, but it’s true.

“I’m so glad I signed up for that dumb art class last year,” Helena says.

Dinah laughs, shoving at Helena lightly. “Yeah, killer. Me too.”

:::

She passes with distinction, the department gushing over her work, and Dinah is thrilled, but she misses the after party because Helena takes her home to show her what _she_ thinks of _Dinah’s_ body and that?

That’s the best celebration she can think of.


End file.
